Cipher's Quest: (A Scifi Fantasy LitRPG) (Ciphercraft Book 1)

by Tim Kaiver

  Something swirled inside Emmit's blood and mind, as though his systems were being probed by an alien substance small enough to move in a million different motions. Nausea mixed with strength in a way that made moving seem unwise until the process completed.

  Sara stopped a few strides up the hill, turned, and looked him up and down. "It's okay. That's normal after the injection. I'll go check on Adi."

  "What injection?" he asked weakly.

  She turned as though not hearing. His throat and tongue seemed disconnected from his thoughts and intentions. For the first time, Emmit wondered which side Sara was on.

  23

  Cullen had reached the point where his adrenaline and breathing were in sync and he could run for much longer. His ten years in exile fueled him to save those who had also suffered while away from home. It would be his pleasure to see their return.

  Scanis ran three strides in front of him. Her physical excellence was as impressive as that of the rest of her team, challenging his perception of how seriously he took his own training. It would be good to work alongside them.

  Where was Torek? Was he all right, or even alive? He had been so focused on the rejects and reaching Willo that thoughts of anything beyond that required an unusual level of concentration. Where's Torek?

  "Didn't I tell you he tricked you into this mission?" Willo spoke as clearly as if she were running right beside him. That was impossible, since the exposed riverbank was to his left and a shallow stream of burbling water lay to his right. "He knows Ocia has no interest in you remaining alive after his telepaths steal your memories. Why do you care where he is?"

  The words twisted like daggers in his soul. He pushed to regain his pace behind Scanis, trying to make sense of this new reality. She doesn't know Torek like I do, he tried to tell himself.

  "Showing you will steal precious time and energy, but fine, suit yourself."

  Cullen found himself in a command center, Torek's live profile on its main screen. His prior momentum from running slowed only in his head as he stood before the screen as though he had been there some minutes.

  "What's your plan once you get to Vijil?" Torek was asking.

  The eyes looking up at the screen blinked. "Don't you worry about that." The voice was Ocia's. "You and Cullen will be set up here with a prisoner of war business that'll keep him happy. He’ll think he's helping his people. He'll never know about our arrangement or your involvement in keeping him here instead of going home."

  Torek scrutinized Ocia, absorbing the man's meaning without a flinch. Cullen had to wonder if he ever really knew his supposed friend and partner. Torek took on an air of cold professionalism. He nodded. "Okay. I'll connect with Jolnes and schedule the pickup."

  "Good," Ocia replied.

  The vision vanished, and Cullen's sudden return to the heat of the jungle and the running disoriented him. His knee twisted and he lost his balance, but he hopped out of it and stopped. If what Willo had showed him was true, then Torek had sold him out without much fight at all.

  Scanis slowed and turned. "You okay?" Her voice drowned out the croaking of a toad nearby.

  Getting revenge on those who thought they could trick him felt like something that would make him much better. Yeah. He took off again.

  "Okay," she said, and turned to follow him. The rest of the group, now thirty or more meters ahead of them, ran along the river. "What happened back there?"

  He hadn't mentioned Willo, nor had they spoken about all he'd seen in their collective memories. That was one aspect to being part of this group that appealed —you didn't have to speak to share. Though where that line between privacy and openness was, he wasn't sure. Ehli seemed to have an easy time getting in.

  Ehli. The name came out of nowhere, and yet felt like a crucial piece to the puzzle of deciphering the strange haze in his thoughts.

  "She just joined us, by the way," Scanis said. "Appears she passed the test."

  Cullen sighed in relief. And her son? And Adi?

  Scanis took three strides. "They did well, but are on the run."

  We should find them. The thought reminded him about his compass. He lifted it and examined the terrain map holo that rose like a tiny half circle over his busted wristcom. A dot flashed not far from their position. Transmitters… he thought, straining to remember why.

  "No. Willo needs you right away."

  Scanis's 'path pressed into his head like a plug too large for his sinuses being rammed into his brain. His focus narrowed and his flesh pushed him on toward a fallen tree that blocked the path they followed. He slowed to duck under it. Scanis pulled him by the elbow until they both regained their pace. The main group had disappeared around a bend in the river.

  "We're almost to the tunnel where Willo is," Scanis said.

  They crossed the river using three evenly spaced rocks, jumped up onto the ridge, and pushed into jungle thick enough that he had to rely on the swishing branches to guide him toward the group. The congestion of trees slowed them down. He lifted his rifle and shoved his way through.

  "I look forward to meeting you," Willo said.

  Ehli and I entered one of Schaefer's tunnels. He looked for the orange vine that had marked off the tree and tunnel before. He found a thin vine wrapping around the side of a tall tree near to the other reject.

  "Yes. That's it," Willo said.

  When we entered, Schaefer said it triggered something to tell him where to send Emmit. If we enter, will he know?

  "We have a ghost switch that allows us to come and go without changing the all-clear signal at Schaefer's terminal."

  The lead reject circled the tree and dropped out of sight. Cullen found the hole and descended the ladder. Scanis cast a shadow down the shaft as her boots clapped on the bars to a different rhythm than his.

  Why have you brought me here? he thought to Willo, and stepped off the ladder. Shaking beams of light bounced off the walls farther down the tunnel, marking the passage of the other rejects. Cullen took a mini flashlight off his belt and clicked it on.

  Scanis jumped down to land beside him.

  Willo?

  Scanis clicked on a mini flashlight and walked on. "Let's go."

  After a few steps, with no response from Willo, he asked, What's with Willo?

  Scanis looked at him.

  What do you mean by failed experiments? How are you failures? What I felt... still feel… back there, as we ran. It was more camaraderie than I ever knew in the Guard. You read my thoughts. I could speak right back. No hiccups or worries about signals getting jammed or technology breaking.

  "Yeah. We weren't nearly this organized or capable until Willo stole Schaefer's newest serum. He wanted to try it on some of us, but Willo switched the doses. She set us free before he figured out that once it started working, he wouldn't be the one in control. I imagine that was what led to you coming here."

  The dancing lights ahead went around a bend.

  Something's still not right.

  Scanis didn't look pleased, but she also didn't defend against the accusation.

  Back there, Willo prodded Ehli to use her gift to charm a snake. It bit her in the face, and when we reached out to Willo, she was gone. Kinda like right now. We were talking, and then nothing.

  "Willo's busy. None of us have unlimited reach or energy. Part of why we brought you here was to get an injection to make it easier for us to communicate with you."

  Cullen considered that, and agreed. Whatever's best for the team.

  They neared the bend in the tunnel. The shuffling noises without accompanying voices felt strange at first, and then he realized: this is how rejects live. We don't need to talk out loud. The smell reminded him of a heap of sweaty suits left to mold, and was strong enough to make him suck his breath in through his mouth.

  Scanis smirked. "Yeah, one of the side effects of our new physiology is enhanced perspiration." She wiped a hand across the front of her hairline, then off on her pants, and shrugged. "I'd like to think
our other gifts make up for the aggressive pheromones. In fact, we believe that to mask them would weaken our communal abilities."

  Her glance in his direction was a mix of mischief and invitation, which made him think of Ehli. Is she here?

  Mischief turned to jealousy before she looked ahead down the tunnel. "Not yet."

  They rounded the bend. Ahead was a white-lit room with tables where the rest of the rejects sat, eating and drinking. Cullen felt more sick than hungry, but he could use a drink. After some rest, perhaps he would have an appetite.

  He unclipped his rifle and handed it to the nearest reject as an offering of friendship. My people. I'm here to help.

  Scanis nodded. "We have a few hours to rest before dark. We'll give you your rifle back with full canisters." Scanis motioned for him to keep walking. "Willo is waiting."

  24

  Emmit watched Sara climb up the hill. If Adi was dead....

  He is. He had to accept it. He had no sense of his dear friend's presence.

  As he watched, Sara stared at the ground, then fell to her knees. That's why he hadn't seen Adi before. He was in a dip in the slope.

  Emmit turned away as she reached for Adi. As her sobs bled through the heavy, hot air, a rage coursed through him that could burn the whole forest if given a single ember. He wanted to cry with her, but clung to the anger instead.

  The wump, wump, from the frogs echoed his heavy heartbeat. The sweet call from the birds' throats vibrated in his own. His legs itched with the tremble of the insects' clicking rattles. Even Dy's tiny heartbeat spiked up and down inside the shirt pocket Emmit kept him in. He hadn't lost his only friend with Adi’s passing, though the memory would ache for some time. Would this change his father's plans? Would it put their opportunity to dismantle their enemy at risk? The Cipher hadn't failed his quest, so perhaps there was still another way.

  Without Adi, he struggled to care.

  He felt Sara's return, not from hearing her treads—which he could—but in her boots' impressions on the earth. She was scared. He read that she was worried he might not hold up, that her hope in Ocia and Schaefer would fail—even with the injection, which was supposed to enhance his ultra skills. She feared he was too young.

  Emmit locked eyes with her. It's okay. I will make this right. Ultras are what they call people like me? he 'pathed, reading the identifier from her.

  "Yeah." She wondered if he'd be the first successful one.

  She doubted him. He was adolescent, which made him unstable even without ultra-therapy interfering with his growth. She mused that his abilities were more substantial than presuppositions based on appearance or what people thought of people his age, but after so many years in prison uniform, and being identified by his cell number and ranking age—J2-2—she reckoned it would be difficult to become Emmit Orson, the leader of, and hope for, his people.

  Sara's foot slipped. She scraped her hand against a tree and landed on her back, sliding down toward Emmit’s location. He caught her by the heels of her boots and reached over to grab her clean hand. Transitioning from her senses to his own was as easy as thinking it, and he used his strength to pull her up.

  "Thanks." Her downward gaze lacked focus, her eyes red and puffy.

  "You're welcome. Thanks for taking care of the mara."

  "That wasn't the only one."

  He watched the memory play in her mind of her levitor shot taking down a different mara. The more recent one lay on the hill below, not moving.

  A new heartbeat caught his attention. Sprinkles. For some reason, he'd disappeared from Emmit's reach, but was now back and on his way. "I feel my wolverine. He's this way." Emmit pointed down the hill, and kept her hand in his as he reached for a nearby tree trunk for balance.

  "I'm sorry I couldn't save Adi," Sara said. "I mean, this whole situation is so screwed I can barely tell up from down, but I can't help but feel guilty for encouraging you to come out here."

  Emmit's thoughts returned to their conversation after he'd woken from his fever spell in the cafeteria. She'd told him that the medicine, or whatever, at Fel Or'an could help him, and that Ocia needed him and his mom to go, despite the risks. He read thoughts in her head about having hidden the rebellion, and their existence, in this jungle. Other than that, though, she wasn't responsible. She honestly believed that risking the trek to Fel Or'an was worth it.

  +5 XP – telepathy practice.

  He let the Cipher notification disappear. Still 100 XP to the next level. His level-up bonus offered a mental or physical strength bonus for five seconds, but by the time he'd known Adi was hurt, it was too late. His throat tightened. What he needed now was strength in his heart to push on.

  "It isn't your fault,” he said to Sara. "I'm sorry about Adi too."

  Then the tears did break through, hot and biting under his eyelids. He switched hands with Sara as he shifted to plant a hand on a fallen tree's ridged bark and let the moaning proceed, too weak to stop it.

  Sprinkles sped toward them from at least fifty meters northwest.

  Sara's curled his hand into her palm as she placed her other hand on his shoulder and squeezed. "I'm here for you, Em. I'll do whatever I can to help you get through this."

  A memory of her older brother, Brand came to life. She was eight and he was twelve, back home on Nootenn. Brand chopped logs in half with heaving strokes while she stacked the pieces on a wagon. They shared the joy of lives free from worry, the thoughts of adults who've loved and lost. Two years later, he was taken by the Osuna. She was only ten, and for the first time exposed to the harsh reality that her world could be changed, someone she loved taken away, without either herself or her family having a say. Her dad retreated into a shell of himself, while her mother tried to put on a good face—but wept in her room when she thought Sara was asleep. Eight years after that, her time came. The Osuna placed her in their medical program. That day had been tough, but not as difficult as those eight years of not having her brother to share life with.

  As the memories played out, Emmit and Sara reached more level terrain. It was still too dense to see beyond ten meters. He held on to her hand, keeping the strength of her thoughts in the conduit. As her thoughts drifted to unrelated encounters with Ocia and Schaefer, Emmit let go. Staying in someone's memories for too long was like standing nose to nose with no clothes on, seeing who could hold eye contact longest.

  "Sorry," Sara wiped her muddy hand on her pant leg. The tear in her jacket from the mara bolt exposed blisters on red skin surrounding a charred wound as long as his hand.

  "Does that hurt?" he asked, indicating the wound.

  She raised her brows with a playful smile, easing his embarrassment for asking such a stupid question. "Sure does." She walked over to a tree with leaves like saucers. He read her thoughts of using the pooled rainwater, and walked over to wash with her.

  She reached around the branch to ready the leaf, and waited for him to get his hands underneath.

  "No. Do your side first."

  "I'll be okay for another minute."

  He put his hands under the leaf and she dumped the water, cleaning off most of the blood and filth.

  "Your father struggled to keep his past secret. A few years ago, he told me about what happened to you." She bent a stalk and let a full leaf douse her wound, gasping at the contact. "He made me promise not to tell anyone—and I never did. I can sense your hesitancy about trusting him. I don't blame you."

  She moved to another leaf. A sprouting pink flower poked out of the clear water in its center.

  "Who is Willo?" he asked before the warm water hit his cupped palms. His mom had concealed some things about her that maybe Sara knew.

  She flinched, but continue pouring. "Willo? I don't know. Why?"

  Emmit read her thoughts. She hadn't heard the name before. "She warned me about the rejects before they arrived. She warned my mother first, and while my mom doesn't know who she is, she hid some of what she knows from me."

  Emmit's ha
nds were clean enough, but he moved on to another leaf to get his face doused, and knelt under it.

  Sara took the hint and reached to tip the third leaf. "She warned you about the rejects?"

  The water relaxed him with its unique way as it washed sweat and mud from his scalp and hair. Sprinkles reappeared in his mental web. He wiped his eyes and turned to see the dark furred creature lift its head through a hole in tree branches low to the ground. The ends scraped over its back, and a gash exposed pink flesh under the black fur. Emmit cringed at the pain in his foreleg and backed off. The connection faded, but he continued walking toward them, pink tongue hanging between sharp teeth.

  "Sprinkles," Emmit murmured as he approached the wolverine, checking him over for other wounds. Only minor scrapes, difficult to see beneath the fur. He wondered how many battles the wolverine had been in since he saw him last; he moved with the fatigue of ten. Emmit petted his head and rubbed behind an ear. The ferocity of the animal's teeth and size still put Emmit in awe that such a beast would allow him this close without chomping his hand off. He sensed respect and companionship that reminded him of Adi. That it came from something as powerful as a wolverine inspired awe and confidence. No offense, Dy.

  Water splashed behind him. He glanced back to see Sara washing her hands and forearms, her downward gaze lost in brewing anger. She noticed Emmit watching her, and her face lit like a light without a trace of deceit.

  He tightened his mental web to himself and Sprinkles. How come I can't read what she's thinking? As he stretched his mind back out, Sara cocked her head, a playful smile on her lips.

  "Are you reading me? Why not just ask?"

  Emmit blushed and, looking back at Sprinkles, petted his mane. He didn't want to suspect Sara. It was probably a moment of mental block, or maybe she just wasn't thinking anything.

  "Emmit?" She was playing with him. Her footsteps squished the bark of a soggy, fallen tree apart.

  He turned to see her a few steps away, looking at him more like an older sister would than his developing crush wanted. Sure, she was out of his age range, but that didn't mean he didn't want the respect a man would command. How could he change that? Would showing his strength make a difference? Even after having just cried—but she'd cried too.